Blurring the line between poetry and picture book with its highly emotive visual narrative, FIVE STAGES OF LOVE marks a delectably powerful poetic debut by author and artist Aridam S. Dojie.

Each illustrated, black-and-white spread whispers a solemn secret as art weaves through words and rhymes caress ink, holding heartbreak prisoner while you witness a woman fall in love with her worst enemy, her nemesis — herself.

Grab a copy and dive into this deeply personal collection of equal parts poetry and art. You’re warmly invited — adult you and little you, together — to the FIVE STAGES OF LOVE.

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Sitting with her grief, intellectualizing it, even as she forced herself to feel the pesky little thing through its five dreaded stages of denial, anger, bargain, depression, and finally, acceptance, brought the author face to face with another, far more formidable emotion that required processing in its own right: love

Surely, it must have its own logical stages too. Because how else do you even begin to process love through an intense, generations-old war, where it’s always you against you — your nemesis number one? And also, because what is love but the other side of grief? Especially the love that blooms after it. The love that originally belonged to the despised child in a now adult body, abandoned for far too long for her to even be acquainted with the emotion anymore.

And so, this story begins at the end: a five-stage, slow burn, enemies-to-lovers saga in verse. You think you've hit rock bottom. But it gets darker, and it gets worse, before it gets better. But it does get better. Only, we need to process some stubborn sh*t first.